The Overland Monthly (San Francisco, 1868–1875, 1883 to the present time) has faithfully mirrored the picturesque and stirring life of the Far West. It absorbed The Californian (1880–1882). The first five volumes were edited by Bret Harte, and a large number of his stories, probably forming his best literary work, first appeared in its columns.
Old and New (Boston, 1870–1875) was conducted by Edward Everett Hale with the intention of “squeezing from the Old its lessons for the New” and of combining amusing with instructive literature after the manner of the Revue des Deux Mondes.
In 1870, Dr. Josiah G. Holland and Roswell B. Smith projected Scribner’s Monthly (New York), and for eleven years Dr. Holland was its editor. In 1881 it was changed to The Century Magazine and under the editorship of Richard Watson Gilder has taken high rank as a distinctively popular magazine. It has given special attention to popular history, and its literary, historical, and scientific articles, generally substantial and meritorious, have appealed to a wide range of readers. Like Harper’s, it has drawn upon all of the leading writers, for example Harte (“Gabriel Conroy”), Cable (“The Grandissimes,” “Dr. Sevier”), Howells (“A Modern Instance,” “A Woman’s Reason,” “Silas Lapham”), Stockton (“Rudder Grange,” “The Merry Chanter,” “The Hundredth Man”), Boyesen (“Falconberg”), John Hay (“The Bread-Winners”), Henry James, Jr. (“Confidence,” “The Bostonians”), Eugene Schuyler (“Peter the Great”), Joel Chandler Harris (“Uncle Remus”), Hamlin Garland (“Her Mountain Lover”), Mary Hallock Foote (“The Led-Horse Claim,” “Cœur d’Alene”), Marion Crawford (“Via Crucis”), Mark Twain (“Pudd’nhead Wilson”), S. Weir Mitchell (“Characteristics,” “Hugh Wynne”). Many poems of merit have also been printed in The Century.
In 1887, Scribner’s Magazine was established by Charles Scribner’s Sons, and has since taken rank as among the first of American monthlies. It devotes proportionately more space to literature than is given by its competitor, The Century Magazine, and pays less attention to so-called popular subjects. Like The Century, it contains illustrations, which are characterised by a high artistic standard. Scribner’s is under the editorial management of Mr. Edward L. Burlingame. Like The Century, it is published in London as well as in New York.
Among the other literary periodicals established within the last quarter-century are The Bay State Monthly (Boston, 1884–1885), which became in 1886 The New England Magazine, and which confines itself chiefly to the history and literature of New England; The Forum (New York, since 1886), devoted to the discussion of present-day questions; The Cosmopolitan (New York, since 1886), a typical popular monthly miscellany; The Arena (New York, since 1889), which has been a fearless exponent of advanced liberal thought; Munsey’s Magazine (New York, since 1891), well illustrated, and claiming a circulation of over 600,000 copies; McClure’s Magazine, established by S. S. McClure in New York in 1893, which by the end of its first year circulated 150,000 copies; The Bookman (New York), edited since 1895 by Harry Thurston Peck; and The Reader (Indianapolis, Indiana, 1902), now merged in Putnam’s Monthly.
The Annuals.—In the twenties and thirties of the last century, too, the annuals were popular in America as in England. Almost all of the leading authors contributed to them. Among the best were The Talisman (New York, 1828–1830), written by Bryant, Verplanck, and Sands, and illustrated by Inman, Samuel F. B. Morse, and others; and The Token (Boston, 1828–1842), edited by S. G. Goodrich (“Peter Parley”) and (in 1829) N. P. Willis, in which appeared contributions by Longfellow, Hawthorne (some “Twice-Told Tales”), Mrs. Child, Mrs. Sigourney, and Mrs. Hale. In general, however, the American, like the British annuals, included a large amount of mediocre writing.
The Reviews.—The American reviews begin with The American Review of History and Politics, founded by Robert Walsh (Philadelphia, 1811–1813). In 1815 The North American Review and Miscellaneous Journal was founded in Boston and has consequently had the longest life of all the periodicals now in existence. Its founder, William Tudor, was, we have seen, a member of the Anthology Club, and a writer of fine taste, who later did good service in a diplomatic career in South America. The Review was at first published every two months in numbers of 150 pages each; after the seventh volume it appeared quarterly in numbers of 250 pages each and at the same time ceased to publish poetry and general news, thus conforming more closely to the leading type of contemporary British reviews. The most voluminous contributors to the first sixty volumes were Judge Willard Phillips (editor in 1817), Tudor, Edward and Alexander Everett (editors in 1819–1822 and 1830–1836 respectively), Jared Sparks (editor in 1822–1830), Bancroft, Francis Bowen (editor in 1843–1853), Nathan Hale, George S. Hillard, John G. Palfrey (editor in 1836–1843), Oliver, William, and Andrew Peabody, Caleb Cushing, Cornelius C. Felton, William H. Prescott, and Charles Francis Adams. Much of Whipple’s criticism originally appeared here. Among recent editors have been Lowell, Charles Eliot Norton, Henry Adams, and Henry Cabot Lodge. Bryant’s “Thanatopsis” first appeared here in September, 1817. The book reviews, especially between 1850 and 1870, were probably better than those usually found in any other American periodical. In recent years the character of The North American has largely changed. It now offers monthly a collection of signed articles chiefly on current political and social problems.
Other early reviews were The Christian Examiner and Theological Review (Boston, 1824–1869, in 1870 merged with Old and New), in which appeared some of the most virile criticism of the time; The American Quarterly Review (Philadelphia, 1827–1837), another of Walsh’s ventures and a quarterly of merit; The Southern Review (Charleston, 1828–1832, revived 1842–1855), started by William Elliott and Hugh S. Legare; The Western Review (Cincinnati, 1828–1830), founded by Timothy Flint; The New York Review (1837–1842), established by Francis L. Hawks and later edited by Joseph G. Cogswell and Caleb S. Henry; The Boston Quarterly Review (1838–1842), edited by Orestes A. Brownson, and merged with The United States Magazine and Democratic Review (Washington and New York, 1837–1852), which became The United States Review (1853–1859); The New Englander (New Haven, Conn., 1843–1892), for religious, historical, and literary articles; The American Whig Review (New York, 1845–1852), started by George H. Colton and later edited by Dr. James D. Whelpley; The Literary World (New York, 1847–1853), ably edited by Evart A. Duyckinck; The Massachusetts Quarterly Review (Boston, 1847–1850), edited by Theodore Parker; The New York Quarterly Review (1852–1853); and The National Quarterly Review (New York, 1860–1880).
The Nation was founded as a weekly in New York in 1865 by Edwin Lawrence Godkin, who remained its editor for a third of a century. Since 1881, when Mr. Godkin assumed the editorial control of the New York Evening Post, The Nation has been issued as the weekly edition of The Evening Post. During the forty-three years of its existence, The Nation has held a leading position in American criticism and also as an exponent of American politics considered from an independent point of view. From 1881 to 1905, The Nation was under the editorial management of the late Wendell Phillips Garrison. It is now under the direction of Mr. Hammond Lamont. The literary department is conducted by Mr. Paul E. More, who had, before assuming this editorial post, made a name for himself in literary criticism.
The International Review (New York, 1874–1883) printed many articles of solid worth. The Dial, semi-monthly, was established in Chicago in 1880 by Francis F. Browne. It has made a noteworthy reputation for a high standard of American criticism, and has retained the services of some of the ablest of American reviewers. The Critic was founded, as a weekly literary journal, in New York, in 1881, by Jeannette L. Gilder and Joseph B. Gilder. It did good work in literary criticism and in the presentation of literary news for twenty-five years, when it was absorbed by Putnam’s Monthly. The Sewanee Review, a quarterly founded at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, in 1892, and The South Atlantic Quarterly, founded at Durham, North Carolina, in 1902, are publishing the best literary criticism in the South to-day.